OPERATION ARNON - with Nadav Eyal
We have just witnessed one of the most extraordinary 48-hour periods in Israel since October 7th, as we learned news of an extremely complex military, intelligence and hostage rescue operation.
We are seeing — and many of us are experiencing — the impact that this development is having on Israeli society, and on the Jewish people worldwide.
This operation has been renamed OPERATION ARNON, after Colonel Arnon Zamora, who was the chief inspector of the Israeli Police’s special commando Counterterrorism Unit. He was the only Israeli to have fallen in this operation. May Arnon's memory be a blessing. To learn more about Arnon's life, you can read here.
In this episode, NADAV EYAL provides a comprehensive picture and analysis of what actually happened in this operation. Nadav is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
DS: It's 11:00 PM on Sunday, June 9th here in New York City. It's 6:00 AM on Monday, June 10th in Israel, as Israelis get ready to start their day. We've just witnessed one of the most extraordinary 48 hour periods in Israel since October 7th, as we learned about one of the most complex military, intelligence, and hostage rescue operations conducted in Israel's history. And many of us are experiencing the impact that this development is having on Israeli society, and also on the Jewish people worldwide. This operation has been renamed ‘Operation Arnon’ after Colonel Arnon Zamora, who was the chief inspector of the Israeli police's special commando counterterrorism unit. He was the only Israeli to have fallen in this operation. We will link in the show notes to a couple of pieces about Colonel Arnon Zamora. What we are going to try to do today in this conversation is provide as comprehensive of a picture and analysis of what actually happened in this operation that you'll find anywhere, at least in English language content. And for that, we are grateful to Nadav Eyal, who returns to the podcast for this longer than usual episode, longer, because we get into a lot of detail that Nadav has access to through his reporting and sources, among the most senior officials in the Israeli security apparatus, as well as those in operational roles on the front lines. Nadav, as listeners to this podcast know, is a columnist for Yediot Aharonot. He has been covering Middle Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print, and television news. He is among a handful of the most senior national security journalists and analysts in Israel. We're also witnessing important political developments, including war cabinet member Benny Gantz's announcement that he will leave the unity government that he had been serving in, and well, that he helped create in the days after October 7th. We will have a separate conversation with Haviv Rettig Gur, analyzing these political developments and their implications. That conversation will drop in the next couple of days, but today we are exclusively focused on the IDF operation to rescue these four hostages. Nadav Eyal on ‘Operation Arnon’. This is Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast, from Tel Aviv, my longtime friend and someone I'm in touch with quite frequently, especially after events of the last 24 hours, Nadav Eyal. Nadav, thanks for being here.
NE: Thanks for having me, Dan.
DS: Nadav, we have a lot to get to. I want to quote from a piece you wrote for, as part of your column for, Yediot Aharonot. This is an English translation. I'm not going to read the whole piece, but I'm just going to read here: “From the reaction of Israelis, one could feel the unparalleled magic, not just rational mutual responsibility, but deep collective emotional involvement. For Israelis, every abductee is a personal matter. Therefore, lifeguards on the beaches of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon took to the trouble to inform the swimmers and the beachgoers of the good news. That four abductees were released alive and well. That Noa Argamani was on her way home and people cheered from the water. Secular people informed their Sabbath observant neighbors, ‘Good news! There was an IDF operation.’ Parents summoned their children to the television screens and told them with tears, ‘Our forces have freed abductees in an operation and they are on their way home.’ Nothing, and absolutely nothing, can take these moments away from Israelis. The closest thing to Operation Entebbe in a long and bloody war.” Nadav, does it really have that feeling? I mean, I know you were barely alive in the post-Entebbe Israel, the immediate post-Entebbe Israel. Does it really have that feel?
NE: I think it does. I think that for Israelis, what we have just experienced in the last 48 hours is a sense of such joy and accomplishment, and to an extent, vindication. Because the sense is that this war has been the longest war that Israel has seen since its War of Independence. It's been a terrible war in the sense that it opened with several massacres of Israelis within our territory. And Israel is, of course, not only attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah in the north, but also by a regional alliance, and has been attacked globally, politically, ever since October 7. And for Israelis to know that the IDF can still pull this kind of an operation, you know, at the heart of Nuseirat, and bring these people home - it gives a sense of security, that was shattered on October 7th. And it strengthened the trust that people have in their country and in these armed forces that have been working tirelessly. I think the people back in America don't understand the amount of resources, the man hours, the incredible efforts made by Israel in relation to the hostages. I would say that there is no rescue operation in history to get hostages back, that had this kind of investment put into it - of time, of money, and mainly of the dedication of these Israelis that are part of it. I have friends there in these units, and I know how personal it is. But there is something else. Look, everybody knows that in Israel, the idea of solidarity. And of course, it stems from the Jewishness of the country. But there is something more. Because this idea of ‘all for one and one for all’, you can see it in different countries. And I know you wrote an entire book about the things that make Israel special. But one thing that does make it special is this emotional involvement. It's not only a rational idea, that we need to stick together or we're not going to survive in this neighborhood. It's the idea that it is really a very personal thing and that people know the stories of Noa Argamani, of Almog Meir Jan, and these people of, Andrey Kozlov - people know these names by heart. And you could see in Jerusalem that people opened up their window, and talked with people going to the synagogues, saying to them, because they heard the news, and they knew that Shabbat observant people couldn't hear the news, ‘hey, they've released our hostages.’ And people started dancing in the street, you know, by hearing this news.
DS: I just want to explain for our listeners, Nadav, for those who have not spent time in Israel or aren't familiar with what you're describing, if you are an observant Jew, if you're a religiously observant Jew, you have no access to electronics on Saturday, the day that this operation was conducted. And for some communities that are even more religious, more religiously observant, they don't even have access to media, just any kind of media, even if it's not electronically based. So there were a lot of Israelis who would have otherwise not known that this operation was conducted. And secular Israelis, who did have access to, you know, social media, the internet, television, would just communicate, they'd look out for religiously observant, Sabbath observant Jews, and try to just let them know verbally, so that they could share in this national communal joy, even though they were cut off from the news and the way it was being transmitted. That in and of itself just reminds me - it's divided as, and you're right, we did write a whole book about this, Saul and I, and we specifically addressed this - that, as divided as the country could be at times, often between the secular and the religious, there are these moments where you're reminded that they all feel a sense that they're in this together, and I think what you're describing illustrates that.
NE: And by the way, people also put signs in the buildings of both religious and secular neighbors so that their religious neighbors going through the stairs will know that these people have been released. And for me, myself, and my wife, we teared up immediately when we heard about this. And we took the trouble of taking our children to the TV screens and showing them the live and breaking news. And usually these days, Dan, breaking news in this country are bad news. That’s the truth. And just a week before that, we heard that four hostages, grandpas, grandfathers from the kibbutzim that were taken by Hamas, were killed probably in December in Khan Yunis, were murdered or killed by our fire, enemy fire, we don't know yet. And these families got the notification, and just a few days later, you hear in the morning, and I knew that something was cooking. As a journalist, I didn't know exactly what, and we're going to talk about the details - and then to have this news delivered, at the end, some good news for Israelis, after all of these months. It was a truly a very emotional moment. And to an extent, a moment that gives you, supplies you with a lot of energy looking into the future, saying maybe, you know, maybe this trend, maybe this feeling that things are not going our way in recent months, maybe this is about to change and maybe this is an omen for that. But mainly, showing our kids, ‘hey, the IDF came and brought them back.’ Because, you know, for a six year old, for a 10 year old, explaining them that these grandpas, that these kids, that these women are hostages of Hamas, that they know is an evil organization, it's very difficult to reassure them as to their future. And I'll just tell you a small story about that and about this country. During Independence Day, Yom Ha'atzma'ut celebrations, we took our daughter to, in our local town, to an event. And at the beginning of the event, she's six years old. At the beginning of the event, the presenter said, if there's going to be a siren, we're going to run to the next door building and the building is ready. And she didn't understand that he's saying if there's going to be a siren. She thought that he's saying that there's going to be a siren. And the entire celebration of the Independence Day was ruined for her. We didn't understand why. Because, she said, ‘I was waiting for the siren to go, because I knew that a missile attack is coming.’ This is what Israelis have been experiencing in recent months. The sense of so much tragedy. And a good example to that is, of course, the story about Almog Meir Jan's father, one of the abductees that was released, and his father was extremely depressed because of his son’s abduction. Naturally, he lost much of his weight. He didn't leave much his house. And they came knocking on his door in the morning to let him know that his son has been rescued by the IDF, but he was dead. He died during the night. So, there's so much tragedy and sorrow and sadness. For Israelis, these moments, I think, were crucial for our national identity and to give us some boost for the future that might be, indeed, I don't want to say impossible, but probably difficult in the days to come.
DS: Nadav, the only observation I would add to that, and then we can get into the actual operation, is I think everything you said extrapolated out to Jews worldwide. I think one thing that has become clear to most Jews, those living in Israel and those living in the Diaspora, is the sense of Jewish peoplehood. How strong it is. How intense it is. How widely and deeply felt it is. And everything you're describing, I was getting similar comments from friends who, you know, who are Jews, who live in the US, who are following events in Israel. And they know all the details about these personalities. ‘Oh my gosh, Noa Argamani, her mother has stage 4 brain cancer. Thank God’ - they knew that her mother was dying, and that, you know, the ultimate gift or closure or however you want to describe it for her mother would be seeing her daughter before she passed. And would she get back, would she be freed or released before she passed away? And then there she was, and then there was a question as well, How sick is her mother? Could her mother even, you know, recognize her? And there are reports about that - but everything you're describing was like, people here know the names and they know about the father who passed away when the army came up, they know every one of these details. So Jews around the world, I think, are as invested in this collective experience you're describing, in ways that I don't think they thought they could feel before October 7th. It's very powerful.
NE: And I have to tell you that Dan, that we can feel that from Israel. We feel that this, it's not lost on Israelis during the war because of their own trouble, in that sense, that something is changing in the Jewish diaspora around the world.
DS: Yeah. Okay, so Nadav, I want to now talk about the actual operation, and in the course of your reporting you've been in touch with senior officials, some of the most senior officials in the defense and security establishment. Can you tell us, just generally, what you've learned and then we can get granular on the actual operation?
NE: So I can begin with the fact that Israel has been collecting a lot of intelligence and the U.S. has been assisting it to an extent, also the U.K., an enormous amount of intelligence. I cannot go into specific details, but this kind of intelligence would probably amaze everyone who can hear us right now. Israel has been very focused, not attacking in places that it suspects that hostages are being held at. It's been very careful in managing this intelligence. So the captors in various places around the Gaza Strip don't understand what Israel knows and doesn't know. A few weeks ago, it was decided that Israel will begin an operation in the Nuseirat camp. It's in the center of the Gaza Strip. It's what's called the central camps of the Gaza Strip. And these are areas that were virtually untouched by the IDF during the war, from reasons that the IDF is not disclosing. And then they began an operation. This operation was led by the division, the commando division of the IDF. And it's been attacking in the outskirts of the Nuseirat camp.
DS: Can you just describe what the Nuseirat camp is? What is it? Is it a refugee camp like Jabalia? Like, is it that kind of a camp?
NE: Nuseirat is a camp in the center of the Gaza Strip between Gaza and a place called Deir al-Balah. It's part of the Deir al-Balah area. About 30,000 people living there. You know, apartment buildings up to three, four floors, and not more than that. A really, a stronghold of Hamas, like virtually all refugee or former refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Very dense, heavily populated, difficult to travel within the camp, small streets, the kind that you would have in a place that began as a refugee camp. And this is a stronghold, not only of Hamas, but also of Islamic Jihad, basically difficult places even when the Israelis controlled the Gaza Strip years and years ago. Now, what the IDF did, first of all, to begin with, this entire operation was planned with a general attack on the Hamas strongholds in Nuseirat, with the thinking that the IDF is going to attempt and release these hostages. So for weeks, the IDF has been conducting a surprise attack in the Nuseirat area, aiming to free the hostages without Hamas understanding that this is what they intend to do. And how did they do that? They attacked on the outskirts of this town.
DS: But this is the first time they've been hitting Nuseirat, right? Because my understanding from October 7th to now, they hadn't really, Nuseirat had been largely untouched up until the last few days.
NE: Yeah, that's true. And to an extent, also Deir al-Balah. Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat are considered the central camps of the Gaza Strip. And again, from reasons that the IDF is not disclosing, people might try to guess, the IDF has been very, extremely careful in tackling this area of Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah. Then, Division 98, that's the commando division, headed by a man called Lieutenant General Dan Goldfus, who's quite famous in Israel because of a speech he made about Israeli politicians not rising to the task, or something of the sort. They started attacking on the outskirts of Nuseirat, and their job was very delicate. They needed to attack in a way that will lead to a series of events that will allow the hostage rescue, but on the other hand, won't frighten the captors to the extent that these hostages will be moved. And they needed to come as close as they could to these two houses. And I should say that Noa Argamani was held in one house, and she was held on the first floor and you have another house and then you had on the third floor you had those three hostages that were also released together with Noa Argamani.
DS: And those three were held together? The three men were held together?
NE: Those three were held together. So what the IDF was trying to do, it was trying to influence in ways that they have not detailed and I am not at freedom to say. To have an optimal situation when you give the order to try and take the hostages out in a rescue mission, so you want to come as close as you can to these houses without giving the impression that you're actually going to move the IDF into where these people were held. Now, this specific location within Nuseirat is not far from the market, or it's the market area. It's not far from the mall. There's a big mall in the Nuseirat camp, shopping mall. And one of the reasons, probably, that Hamas felt secure is that Hamas never estimated that the IDF is going to take the center of the camp. Because this is really the center, very highly populated area. By the way, an area that had an active market all through the war, with all the stories that sometimes are aired in the international press. So it's important to say, this area had an active market selling, what have you, you know, vegetables, food, and all the rest. And that's the reason that Noa Argamani and those other three hostages were held there. They were held there because they used the Palestinians there as, sort of, shields against a possible IDF operation, with the assumption that the IDF cannot actually occupy these places easily. And if it will advance into these streets, then they'll have enough time to evacuate the Israeli hostages and smuggle them out into a different place, which they've been doing. So they've been moving Israeli hostages from time to time. So, they took positions, the IDF took positions that were quite close. Then they needed to make a very difficult call. They were preparing, on these buildings, building models, that's the way that special units and command units work. They build models of these buildings. And the unit responsible for this is the Yamam. The Yamam is the special anti terror movement of the Israeli police, but it's actually a branch of the Israeli special forces. Together with the operational unit of the Shin Bet. These are the actual units that were responsible for the activity, but it was commanded by the IDF. And they built models. They went to the defense minister asking for the authorization. The chief of staff was personally involved with this. You need to understand, Dan, that both the chief of staff, the defense minister, himself, the prime minister, they are all former commanders of the Israeli special units, right? With the defense minister, it's the Israeli Navy SEALs. With the chief of staff, it's Sayeret Matkal and other units. With the prime minister, it's also Sayeret Matkal.
DS: And for our listeners, Sayeret Matkal is like the equivalent of like, the Delta Force in the U.S. I mean, it's among the most elite special force combat commando units.
NE: Yeah. And when you build these models, you need to take into account everything that might go wrong. Okay? So it's called the cases and the responses to the cases. You say in Hebrew, cases and response. And then you go to the decision makers and sometimes they do not authorize. And I remember meetings, you know, I had friends in these meetings, sometimes from the Mossad, sometimes from the army. They would go to Prime Minister Sharon or Prime Minister Barak, both of which are army people. They would present an incredibly elaborate plan that they think that was really very well processed and they had every answer to every problem that might arise during the actual operation. And then the prime minister would just say, ‘no, I'm not authorizing this because the risks are just too high.’ And sometimes it would stem out of their professional understanding. And the prime minister and defense minister who brought this to its peak, this kind of style of leadership is, of course, Yitzhak Rabin, who was very picky and very, very detail oriented. So people would come to him and he would say, you know, I know that hill and I know that bridge, and you're not going to get away with this, and I'm not authorizing this operation. And this kind of style of leadership was inherited by various Israeli leaders all the way to Netanyahu to this day. For instance, Gallant, with this operation didn't authorize, this wasn't published I think, but he didn't authorize the first plan. He told them, go back to the board and bring me some solutions to this and that problems that might arise. So the reason I mentioned Yitzhak Rabin is of course, because of one of the most tragic moments in Israeli history, when Rabin as Prime Minister orders a rescue operation to release a soldier that was captured by Hamas. And the name of that soldier was Nachshon Wachsman. It was 1994. And Sayeret Matkal, Israel's ‘Delta Force’, as you put it Dan, went into that operation, and Nachshon Wachsman was murdered by his captors during that operation, and an officer from Sayeret Matkal, in the name of Nir Poraz, was killed in action. And that night, it was a dramatic night. Rabin went to the Israeli TV, and he said, ‘I gave the order. I am responsible and I am responsible alone.’ And this was a form of leadership, very much regarded to this day, that he would take on himself the responsibility, not blame the army, not blame circumstances, but say, ‘it's my responsibility’. He also went to the family, of course, and did the same. So with this kind of operation, when you order release of hostages, the first thing that you need to think about is, can you get them out alive without being murdered by their captors? And the second thing is how many people might die in the process of trying to release them? And when you have on the table, Dan, the possibility of a deal, a prisoner deal, that's a huge decision to make. And who are the people making this decision? First of all, it's the chief of staff. The chief of staff needs to say, ‘I am recommending for you decision makers in the Israeli government, go for this operation. Chances are high that we're going to get them out without having people killed in action’. And the chief of staff here is Herzi Halevi. He's been viciously attacked, politically attacked in recent weeks. He's been just attacked last week that he didn't authorize a different operation to release hostages. I think that that piece of information published in Israeli press, it's not aligned with the facts as I know them. Let me put it this way. He's been sometimes attacked by political personas and he's also responsible and he's saying that, ‘I am responsible for October 7 as the person commanding the army and I'm going to resign’. This is something he says in close conversations. So for him to order this, to recommend this, that's a major decision. And he didn't sleep at the night between Friday to Saturday. He just didn't sleep because he knew that in the morning, if this doesn't work out, it's not only about the hostages dying. These are also high profile hostages to an extent. You know, if Noa Argamani would have died by IDF fire or because of a failed IDF operation, just imagine Dan, what the world would have said in terms of legitimacy and other aspects. He wasn't worried about image. He was worried that he would get soldiers killed, that soldiers would be abducted, that these people, these hostages would be killed. He just announced the week before, it's the IDF that announced to the Israeli public, that four hostages have died. Then he needs to recommend this, and he recommends this to the defense minister and to the prime minister. These are the people who make their decision. Then the defense minister needs to make up his mind. The defense minister is also responsible for October 7th, as is the prime minister. And they decide to authorize this. This is not a cabinet meeting. You don't do cabinet meetings on special operations like this, because this is a touch and go moment. You know, you can lose this moment in a second. You do not want this to leak. And you already have hundreds of people that are part of this secret. And by the way, these people sign specific papers saying ‘we're part of the secret’, it's a state secret, when they go into the preparation of this operation. And all of these three, the chief of staff, the defense minister, the prime minister, decided it's a go to the IDF forces. And the conditions are, of course, that the captors will not move them. Now, there is a political drama happening in the middle of all this, because on Thursday, it's becoming apparent that Benny Gantz is going to leave government. Now, here's the problem. Benny Gantz is being updated by the head of the Shin Bet and by Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, that there might be a rescue operation in Saturday, or between Friday to Saturday. And they decided, by the way, it's going to be during the day. That's a major dramatic decision in the world of commander units. ‘Are you going to go?’
DS: Can you just explain that for a minute? Because most of these operations are in the middle of the night. This one was at 11:00AM, daylight. So A, why that's such a big decision, why it's such a deviation from how it's normally done, but why they felt it was important to do on this operation.
NE: So what senior sources explained to me was that, at this specific condition, they felt that the IDF might have the upper hand during the day. And one of the main reasons for that is that the day is much more noisy, right? So if you go into a refugee camp or to this town during night, your cover story is very problematic. But if you go during the day and there's traffic and there's a market going and there is a shopping mall, there are much more chances that you'll buy in some time. I'm not familiar with every aspect of that decision, but I gave you one that I heard about from these senior sources. Now, Benny Gantz hears on Thursday there might be an operation, but he promised to leave government by a specific date. On Friday morning, he collects his staff and he tells them, ‘look, there might be a secret operation in the Gaza Strip. But if we delay our announcement, that might lead people to think that something is wrong. And we're not going to do anything with that. We're not going to brief political correspondents about that. We're not going to do anything that might endanger the operation.’ And on Friday morning, he announces that he's going to leave government on Saturday evening, knowing that on Saturday morning, there's going to be this rescue operation. And then the prime minister says in a special notice that he's going to have a speech after Benny Gantz’s speech on Saturday evening. So both of them are playing, politically speaking, as though there is no operation in play, although they're very much familiar and, you know, they're very much stressed towards the IDF operation. And that gives you an impression on how even politics in Israel can be shoved aside.
DS: So Gantz announces on Friday, knowing that the operation is going to be on Saturday, he announces on Friday that he's going to give a major speech on the weekend. Right? Conveying that everything is sort of as normal. Meaning, obviously he wouldn't be giving a speech if he knew there was an operation going on. So, it just felt like everything was coming along. In fact, we were in touch late last week assuming Gantz's speech was going to be happening. We were going to plan this episode around the significance and the implications of Gantz leaving. So everyone just thought it was business as usual. Do you think Netanyahu and the other members of the war cabinet knew Gantz did that with the intention of a kind of deception campaign?
NE: Oh, yeah.
DS: They were all coordinated on that, that he was going to make this announcement?
NE: Everyone understood that they're going to play along as though there is no operation.
DS: But not only is there no operation, but that it's politics as usual. Gantz is making a political announcement. So Netanyahu knew that it was all part of the plan.
NE: Yes, to an extent. Netanyahu canceled the cabinet meeting on Thursday night. There was supposed to be a cabinet meeting and a war cabinet meeting and both were canceled on Thursday. And they were canceled because nobody wanted to give an impression that something is going to happen, but you need to understand that at this time you have many hundreds of people who are part of this secret and you have the special commander units operating, but you also have an entire division - the main parts of it know that something's going to happen during the weekend, and they need to keep that secret. Then they are making the final call. It's a go on Friday night, Saturday morning. So, when given the go -
DS: When was the official go given?
NE: On Thursday. But they need to put many things at play, including intelligence tools, technology, preparing the Israeli Air Force, thinking about escape routes. They need all of these things 24 hours before the actual operation. So, the go ahead is on Thursday. And then, from that moment, decision makers are out of the equation. And now it's up for the army people, it's up for the imam to actually bring these people back home. And the way that it works is that in these positions of the 98th division, you had an assembly of the special forces, and you need to take them out and make sure that they will not be seen as IDF forces. They'll blend in, and it was published in the past that Israel has these units of people who speak Arabic and Palestinian jargon, and these are the people who are at play here. And they'll probably drive these kind of cars -
DS: For our listeners, this is like a scene out of Fauda. Right?
NE: This is Fauda. This is what Fauda was written about. These kind of operations, let me just quote Avi Issacharoff, that is one of the writers of Fauda's writing, in Yediot, my newspaper. He wrote, ‘this is beyond belief. This operation is beyond belief.’
DS: Right, yeah. I spoke to Avi yesterday and he himself said he was blown away. Like, if he had tried to write what actually happened into a scene for Fauda, it would have been too unbelievable.
NE: Yeah. And we're not even, you know, the drama is still ahead, because this thing also had these cliffhangers going on. So someone is going to write this down. And then these forces, at a specific time that morning, they're giving the final go. There's no going back now. It's not about preparing, it's not about technological tools. It's not about having more Air Force intelligence, unmanned aircrafts. It's about actually driving there, and they needed to drive there. It was published in Palestinian press that they use a truck, a moving truck. And this is not the IDF coming in, just shooting. This is not noisy. This is supposed to be a commando operation. They managed to get to these two positions, these two houses.
DS: But the big moving truck, just so I understand it, and I saw images of it, the big moving truck, Avi sent me actually some footage that I guess was on Palestinian telegram accounts of the actual truck. The reason they had that big truck is because they had to move so many commandos to the scene that were piled into the truck?
NE: Because they wanted to move, I'm speculating right now, and I also have to say that the whole issue of the truck is from Palestinian sources, and not Israeli sources, but I've seen this on Palestinian Telegram. I wouldn't talk about it if I wouldn't think that it's appropriate to talk about this issue. The reason you would use a truck here is because you would want to move many people at once and not use a lot of vehicles. Right? Just use one vehicle. And that's also a major decision in planning this kind of operation. Maybe you should use three vehicles coming from three different points and not use a truck. And a truck is of course something that when it moves around Nuseirat, with its narrow streets, this is not a place that you have wide scale roads like in the US. Everyone can basically stop this truck. Just put his car in the middle of the road or put something else. This is a refugee camp. And by using this truck, this is, again, the kind of planning that can work very well or can lead to - and at the end if it’s a disaster, and then, you know, a guy like me sits in a podcast like yours and says, you know, people are in Israel are asking, ‘why did they use a truck to begin with?’ But it did work. And they're moving into these houses. They're moving quietly there and they're arriving there. And it turns out that Hamas is completely unprepared. And the extent of this kind of arrogant approach by Hamas was very evident in at least one of these places. So, they didn't really think that there is any possibility that someone will come. And I cannot publish all the details. I tried to do that this morning in Israel. I need to say that in Israel, there is, during war and military censorship on specific details that might jeopardize forces on the ground. And we also, we always talk with that censorship and they don't have a heavy hand. But sometimes they're very direct in saying, ‘this thing cannot be published.’ So I can't supply the specific details, but it's clear that Hamas was overconfident with at least one of these hostages, and that they felt that there is no way that an Israeli commando raid is even possible. In the case of Noa Argamani, they managed to get her onto a Namer, that's an armored vehicle of the IDF. This happens quite quickly, and rather easily. But on the other hand, in a different location, in the location of these three hostages, shots are fired. These are shots that are fired from a corridor, or from an angle that was not anticipated when planning the operation. They didn't think that there was going to be a Hamas operative or terrorist there. And these shots hit Superintendent Arnon Zamora. Zamora was one of the squad leaders leading this operation. He is severely wounded, and he later dies in hospital. So, shots are fired. This becomes, from a quiet commando, you know, nobody notices kind of an operation, to a situation in which everybody in Nuseirat understands that something's going on. They started losing time. And then you have, in a matter of minutes, and I'm saying this based on my conversation with these defense officials, you had at least three people coming with RPGs. And this entire operation, with three out of four of the hostages, seems to be getting into a really complex scenario. Now, they were with the truck. And then they're starting to drive and shots are fired at them. And there's a man with an RPG standing and aiming at them. He's being seen from above by an unmanned aircraft of the Israeli Air Force. They're telling the truck, don't continue on driving, because there's a man who's standing and waiting to shoot an RPG at the truck down the road. They're stopping the truck. There are shots fired at the truck. And one of these shots hits the gearbox of the truck. And the truck gets stuck. We're at the heart of Nuseirat. It's a noisy operation. There are three hostages in the truck. There are at least two squads of the Israeli special units in the truck. And it's not that they're coming in, you know, with the tanks. They're undercover. And this could have ended very easily with a lynch, which is something that, as we saw on October 7, they know how to do in Gaza. So, this is when the IDF enacts its first contingency plan, and that contingency plan is basically saying, to a brigade called the 35 Brigade, ‘now you go in, and you get these people out and use the force necessary to neutralize any threat to them.’ And now this is an IDF operation. This is not an undercover, this is not Fauda anymore. This is coming in guns blazing. And they are being shot at by Hamas terrorists all over the camp. They go in with tanks, with Namer, that's armored vehicles. They go into that truck. And this is, by the way, when after Hamas is shooting at the truck and at the IDF, the IDF is shooting in the camp and Palestinian civilians get hurt and get killed. These are the pictures that were shown around the world. This is the point where it's happening. It's because the IDF is saying, we need to get to that truck and get these people out as soon as we can. And they managed to do that. They got into the truck. You can see these pictures on Palestinian networks. You know, they got there with tanks. They got there with Namer. They got there, by the way, with infantry. They managed to extract them. They're taking them from there towards choppers that were landing on the beaches of Gaza, not far from this position. And they were flown immediately to the Tel HaShomer Hospital. Tel HaShomer Hospital knew, I think on Friday already, that this is going to happen. And this is the hospital in Israel, in the center of Israel, not far from Tel Aviv, that is tasked with treating the hostages when they return. And when I say treating, they know everything. They know, you know, if you're missing glasses, they'll have the glasses prepared for you. If you need medication, they'll get detailed report from the army doctors on the way. ‘What's the condition of the hostage?’ They'll prepare operating rooms just in case, and they'll get them, you know, ready and prepped. And these choppers land in Tel HaShomer. By now, many, many people in Israel do know. And people in Tel HaShomer were there. Suddenly they see a big military helicopter landing at the premises and they see hostages coming out from a distance. And then you get Yaakov Argamani, at the entrance of the hospital, and he's waiting for his daughter. He knows that she's been released. He talks with someone over the phone, and he says, and I quoted this in the piece that you read at the beginning of our session now. He says, ‘what an army we have.’ For me, it was such a moment because you didn't hear that in the last eight months. ‘What an army we have.’ That they will go in and they would rescue these people from wherever. And there's something that I want to read to you. I'll tell you who wrote it after I read it. It's from a commando operation many years ago, and the person writing this is talking 40 years after that commando operation, even more than 40 years ago. ‘We boarded the missile boats, ready mentally and physically, and we were confident that we had our commander with us, and behind him his own commander. And behind him, the chief of staff himself. And before setting out, we meticulously checked our equipment and ensured we had this wonderful physician with us. And as we embarked on these boats, on several hours of sailing in open sea towards an operation so far away from Israel, we carried with us the support of our friends. We carried with us Israel, our teacher, our parents, our communities. Kibbutz Magen, Kibbutz Shoval, Jerusalem, Migdal, Haifa, Ra'anana. And we sensed in that sailing on the boat that Israel was with us, and our people stood by us all the way.’ And this is the sense when you go out to an operation like this, that they are all with you, all the way back. And the person writing this was my father, who was a young officer in an operation conducted by the IDF many, many years ago. This sense that everybody is with you at that moment, and that you can trust them to do their best. And this was very powerful because of the hostage discussion in Israel today, because people feel that these people who were just going to a party or were in their kitchens were taken, and the country wasn't there to save them. And now, the country came for them. And the hostages, when they talked with their families, and this was published, they said, ‘we saw the demonstrations. And we saw people in the demonstrations picking up our photos and it gave us the idea that they're fighting for us. They're fighting for us to get back home.’
DS: How did they see that? Because I've heard this from others.
NE: They saw Al Jazeera.
DS: They saw Al Jazeera.
NE: Or they were shown Al Jazeera, or they were shown, on the phones.
DS: Yeah, because Maya Roman, who we had on, who's a relative of Yarden Roman, who was freed in the first, released in the first hostage exchange, and also has another relative, Carmel Gat, who's still being held. According to Yarden Roman, her captors let her listen to the radio five minutes a day, and she could hear what was going on. But here you're saying they were, they could see television.
NE: We don’t exactly know how they were held. For sure one thing is sure, they all returned in rather good condition. I don't know of every experience that they went through in the last eight months, but it's clear that in recent weeks, at least, they were held in good condition, relatively speaking. Still held by Hamas, but not held underneath the ground. And we're still, you know, hearing more and more facts about their time in captivity. And they had conversations with their captors, and they were held with families. It's a trend by Hamas. Hamas holds these hostages with civilian Palestinian families that are quote, unquote “hosting” them at the direction of Hamas, by people who are sympathetic to Hamas. It's a Hamas tactic to leave them within civilian areas with civilians so that they'll be able to use, not only these hostages as human shields, but also use these families as sort of shields and sometimes the families, more times than none, the families are happy to be part of this national operation of abducting Israelis and hiding them in their houses. There are stories of other abductees that were freed, that were made to cook for the family, to clean for the family. They were used as household unpaid work. They were, of course, told what to wear, how to talk, when not to talk. They were told not to cry. And other aspects of the way that they've been attacked and viciously held in captivity. But at least in recent weeks, these people were held in rather good conditions.
DS: These particular hostages?
NE: These particular hostages. If you compare this to other stories that we have heard from different hostages. But let me just say that we have not heard all their stories yet.
DS: Of course.
NE: So I wouldn't say that it's not true for their entire time in captivity, but only of these recent weeks.
DS: Let me ask you about, just before we move off the actual operation. So the intelligence that is gathered, that enables an operation like this, presumably comes from the idea of capturing Hamas combatants, or Hamas sympathizers from, in this case, you know, Nuseirat, well before the actual operation. I mean, that's partly how they gathered intelligence that way. And they also gathered intelligence from signal intelligence, from surveillance of communications transmitted. Does Hamas not recognize that when some of their combatants are captured and taken away, that there's this risk that those combatants will reveal information that could lead to these kinds of dramatic hostage rescues, rescue operations? And therefore not switch up their plans for these hostages in light of the fact that, ‘wait, one of our people was captured here, one of our people was captured over there.’
NE: They do, and they sometimes rotate hostages. And this is one of the risks when you plan an operation like this, that you need to take into account the possibility that even from reasons unknown to you, what Donald Rumsfeld once remarked as the ‘unknown unknowns’, or the ‘known unknowns’, people would be moved in the last moment. So it was very plausible that Israel would prepare an entire operation and will actually move an entire division in order to get these four people out, at the end of these few weeks of operation, and then at the last moment, from reasons that you'll never discover, the hostages will be moved. And these things have happened in different scenarios along the way. So, yeah, Hamas does calculate that Israel is gathering intelligence and it tries to change positions. But you also need to understand that Hamas sees that Israel is very much at an intelligence hold of the Gaza Strip right now. So it has a lot of its intelligence, technological power, it's human, that means human agents of sorts, or intelligence captured, again, from interrogations of Nukhba terrorists. And it will use this intelligence in order to free as many hostages as it can, but also in order to ascertain as to their situation. And the best example is of course, this terrible announcement about the death of four hostages. They died in December, but Israel made the announcement only a week and a half ago. And the reason for that is because the Israelis wanted to be sure that they are indeed dead and that the intelligence is cross checked. And that's the process. You go to the chief rabbi of the army and you authorize, you present the data and the evidence and you reach a conclusion and you go to the families. You say to the families, ‘we have concluded that they are not alive, and these are the reasons, and this is how we know this, although we don't have the bodies.’ And Israel doesn't have these bodies, but it knows that these people have died in Khan Yunis. So it's something that, sometimes people think about this war and they think, you know, there's the war and there's the hostages. No, a lot of the IDF resources are devoted to the hostages and a lot of the decisions that they are making on the battlefield are related to the hostages, because there are areas that they will not hit because they are afraid that they might hit hostages there, even if the data is completely kind of blurred. They don't want to take these chances. And sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes the IDF gets it wrong. And this is part of the drama of this entire thing. And I should say, we've just talked, we just spent a whole lot of time about the freeing of these hostages with a rescue operation of the IDF. And I should state the obvious: we had more than a hundred people released, alive, through a deal at the beginning of this war. And up until now, in an operation like this, we had much less than 10 released. This is not the first operation, right? So, um, Ori Megidish, I should remind our listeners, Ori Megidish is the female soldier that was released by the Shin Bet and the IDF right at the beginning of the war, brought back to Israel. At the end of the day, and let me bring a quote from one senior Israeli defense official. He told me, ‘I want people to know in Israel, we're not going to have 10 operations like this. We simply can't. It's not possible. We would want, and every time we have a chance, we'll aim to free them. But in order to get them out and get them out alive, if we want them all back home.’ And that's the message coming loud and clear from the entire defense apparatus. The chief of staff, the Shin Bet, you name it, they're all in agreement here. If you want to make sure that they can come back home, we would need a deal. Now, for a deal, you need both sides, you know, to agree. You need not only for Israel to make the proposal, that it did make, according to President Biden, but also for Hamas to agree. But they're saying, if someone thinks that this daring operation is a new cycle of sorts that will allow us to operate only through these means, frankly, it's not possible. These conditions in the Gaza Strip, specifically, Dan, after this operation, because as Hamas said last night, they threatened the lives of the abductees that they do have. They said that their condition is going to worsen. This is Abu Obaida, this is the spokesperson of the military ring of Hamas, that the condition of the abductees is going to worsen because they will need more security around them and so forth and so forth. So, Hamas is going to do its best. So, no other operation like this is going to succeed. Now, it doesn't mean that it's not going to succeed. Hamas would have said that, you know, it's a terrorist organization. But, the Israeli defense apparatus is, is not thinking of this as a paradigm shift.
DS: Let me ask you two questions on that, because I want to move to the political implications and the military implications. Let's start with the military implications. I understand that these kinds of operations are not easily repeatable, and they're certainly not scalable. That said, is there a sense that some of the hostages and their captors, and some of the Hamas terrorists that had been underground for say, the first couple months after October 7th, may have relocated above ground? Because it's just difficult, eight months in, to be underground while the above ground is being bombed, and all your access to electricity and water and oxygen and, you know, on and on and on - gets harder and harder. Again, it may have been manageable in the early months, but eight months in, it's not as easy, and as it gets harder and harder, it may simply be that more of these Hamas operatives and their captives are not below ground. Which makes these kinds of operations, you know, I don't want to say easier, but they make them more possible. It sounds like one thing all these operations have had in common that have taken place is they've all been freeing their operations to free Israeli hostages that were being held above ground, not below ground.
NE: It's a great question. And the answer is that they have less and less space on the ground, that they can actually hold hostages in good conditions. And I would underline the last words, ‘in good conditions’. Because if you think about it, Dan, and you would just want to keep people in any condition, there are loads of places in Gaza, also underground, that you can keep them. Here's the point, and I want to be completely real when we talk about this, although it's going to be very difficult. Sinwar was freed in a hostage-for-prisoner deal that was signed off by Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was over a thousand Palestinian prisoners that were freed for one soldier, Gilad Shalit, and this was signed off by the Israeli Prime Minister back then, who was, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, they are holding alive dozens and dozens of Israelis, even after this operation. So, for them, and I'm saying this tragically, they are in a surplus of Israeli hostages compared to what they got in the past. And this is how they look at this. And we know this because of the conditions in which some of these hostages are held. Of course, Noa Argamani is an international figure. Her photo being taken, on that motorcycle, became world famous. And that means something for Hamas. And this is one of the reasons why getting the stories of Hersh Goldberg, of all these hostages, is so important. Because this, to an extent, defends them. But if you want us to be realistic about this, Hamas, when seeing the Israeli society, and the prices Israelis were willing to pay in the past for their hostages - Hamas can rest assured that it'd be able to release many, many prisoners with having much less of hostages, Israeli hostages alive. And that's a tragedy for Israelis. This is where we are at right now. So it doesn't really mean something for them to say, ‘Oh, now we're going to change stuff. We're going to put them underneath the ground, although the conditions there are not humanely possible,’ because as far as they are concerned, some of these Israelis are expendable.
DS: In terms of the, again, the military implications, Defense Minister Gallant has said from the beginning that Israel has the best shot at getting hostages released through negotiations when Hamas feels that they are under military pressure. That in fact, there will be a cause and effect between intense military pressure and Hamas willing to make concessions. Does this event of the last 48 hours constitute the kind of military pressure that may actually incentivize Hamas to make a concession?
NE: Yeah, that's the question of all questions, whether or not Yahya Sinwar will see this as a symbol, an omen, that this might not go his way, or he will see this as a tactical defeat. Israel would want to believe that now, Sinwar will move to the positive with the deal. And when I say Israel, again, you can argue about this because the far right thinks that this deal is a catastrophe for Israel, and that it means losing the war. Many people within the Likud think that, and many people accuse that the Prime Minister is not serious about the deal. Although President Biden, and the Prime Minister has not denied it, said it's an Israeli proposal. So, the question here is whether or not Hamas is serious in saying the deal is off, which they said immediately after the attack. And I want to say something about the Hamas response to that, because it's very interesting to follow, and I follow the Hamas channels. So, you can sense their frustration and panic there. And when you see that, it's very easy to observe because they start lying on an industrial level. So the first thing that they said was that this operation was actually conducted by the Americans, the U.S. Navy SEALs and not by the IDF. And that of course reminded me immediately what Egypt said after the 1967 war, that it's not Israel that has triumphed against them, it's actually the Americans that were operating under the decoy of the Israeli Defense Force’s uniforms. So this is a classic example, you know, when Israel gets a win, it's never its own win.
DS: They don't want to give Israel the credit, right.
NE: Of course, yeah. So it's so obvious, right? Childish to an extent. Then they said, immediately, and it's a formal notice by them, that Israel lost 18 soldiers in this operation. And how stupid it is for Israel to lose 18 soldiers in order to get four hostages out. That's also not understanding anything about the Israeli society. Israel has lost an incredibly brave officer whose name has already become a household name in Israel, Arnon Zamora. It's the fifth time I’ve mentioned now his name during our conversation. He has already become a national hero in Israel. But if Israel would have sacrificed 18 soldiers in order to get four hostages alive, the Israelis would say, ‘It is with pride that we have released these four hostages alive, and this is the job of our security forces to get these civilians back home.’ The third thing they did was, of course, start spreading the news that Israel killed an enormous amount of civilians during this operation in Nuseirat.
DS: Of Palestinian civilians.
NE: Yeah, and, you know, at the beginning it began with 30, now it's over 200. And we have no way to verify it. It's coming from the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Eight organizations that are somehow seen by Western press as the ultimate way to cross check information from the Gaza Strip. And I seriously doubt if it's the right way to go, but let's say it is. They've not supported this yet with this kind of numbers. These numbers are quoted everywhere by the international press, you know, ‘over 200 civilians have been killed.’ I'm not disputing the numbers, I'm just saying that nobody else is vouching for these numbers and that these numbers have been, you know, again and again, mushroomed as the time from the operation went through. And if you want to see these numbers as reliable, Dan, you should also remember that the same people who are notifying us about over 200 Palestinian civilians who have died are the same people who are saying that it's the Navy SEALs at the U.S. that has freed the Israeli hostages. It's the same people who are saying that Israel lost 18 soldiers. It's the same press notes, by the same people, are saying this. So I don't understand why international media isn't carrying also all the rest of these incredibly frustrated remarks by Hamas, including, I can just read you out the last one in one of their channels, I just got it when we were talking, it's in Hebrew, right? It's in a Hamas channel, a famous Hamas channel called Gaza Now, and they're saying, ‘it's the Israeli government, your Israeli government killed a number of your captives in order to save other captives.’ Who are these captives? What are you talking about? It's in Hebrew. I just translated it. This is psychological warfare, but it's very obvious. They're very frustrated at this operation and the way that it was accepted. You know, the White House has said that it commends the Israeli security forces for releasing the hostages. And it has said nothing about anything else in the Gaza Strip or in Nuseirat. And countries congratulated Israel for releasing them. And suddenly, things are slightly more obvious. You have a terrorist organization. It's holding hostages captive. The IDF came to free them. They shot at the IDF. The IDF shot back. People were hurt. And I saw the scenes. They're terrible, including children. But, you know, it's Hamas who decided to take these Israelis from their homes and put them at the center of Nuseirat, not far from the shopping mall in the market area, because they thought that they'll use Palestinian civilians as human shields to defend the Israeli human shields while they stay underneath the ground in their tunnels. And they left them with Palestinian families, either threatened by Hamas or supportive of Hamas. This is a classic story of a terrorist organization and the way that it's been conducting itself. And it's been receiving so much of an international clout lately, to the extent that I just saw this morning, you probably saw that bit of the BBC presenter talking with an Israeli spokesperson, asking if the Palestinians got a heads up as to this operation so that they can evacuate their civilians from the area. And that Israeli spokesperson said, ‘do you mean that we needed to notify the Palestinians that we're going to go for a surprise rescue operation of our hostages?’ This is, you know, when I see this, and I'm saying this as someone who feels for the human tragedy, the Palestinian human tragedy in the Gaza Strip, and writes occasionally, again and again, condemns some of the statements made by Israeli officials, talking about ministers. I'm not going to defend the indefensible, but when I see this in, you know, the BBC and other places, I just wonder, what do these people think? You know, now the IDF needs to notify before it tries to free our hostages from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Talk about the double standards and how you can apply those to Israelis and to the rest of the world.
DS: Yeah, that little BBC exchange is like, it's like it was almost written by Eretz Nehederet, you know, by Israel's Saturday Night Live, which has a fun time ridiculing the Western coverage of Israel, particularly the British press. Nadav, we will leave it there. I should note that a number of our episodes in recent weeks have ended on a pretty low note, and I get that this is still incredibly complicated for all the reasons you've laid out here, but nonetheless, these last couple days have been a rare high note, and so I appreciate you just laying it all out, and at times excruciating, and at other times uplifting detail that you, with which you did it. So, thank you so much.
NE: I hope we have all the chances in the world to report about hostages coming back home.
DS: Absolutely.
NE: You know, either by rescue operations or by a deal, but these are the moments that I would want to talk with you about them.
DS: Fair enough, fair enough, and we will link to the column that I quoted from, it is actually in Hebrew, but for those Hebrew readers, we will link to it, and for those who want to lob it into Google Translate, you can do that too, because I do really think you capture the mood of the country quite beautifully.
NE: Thank you so much, Dan.
DS: That's our show for today. To keep up with Nadav Eyal, you can follow him on X at Nadav underscore Eyal. You can find his Hebrew language reporting and analysis at Yediot or Ynet. We will post a couple of pieces as well to the show notes. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.